


bystander revenge

by 01nm



Series: WSD Universe [2]
Category: Fantastic Four, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Can be read as a stand alone, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, So Married, obligatory Deadpool cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-07 20:18:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7728412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/01nm/pseuds/01nm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bystander followed Spider-Man, but after being denied entrance to The Baxter Building, waited patiently outside with their trusty binoculars trained on the top windows for a peek at the red-and-blue vigilante.</p><p>When Spider-Man suddenly fell from the tower and was 'saved' by a beaming Johnny Storm, no-one but the bystander noticed that it was The Fantastic Four member himself who tossed Spider-Man without webshooters in the first place.</p><p>The bystander vowed to get revenge on the one who dared endanger their most precious hero.</p><p>OR; the one where Johnny gets kidnapped by a fan of Spider-Man's. Peter, honest to god, has to go and save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bystander revenge

**Author's Note:**

> This is the BONUS CHAPTER 9 of [WHAT sugar daddy(s)??](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6853342/chapters/15643573). It can, however, be read as a stand-alone.

 

To say that Peter is surprised would be an understatement.

 

 _“Johnny!?”_ Peter questions the person on the phone, incredulous and high-pitched with worry. “As in _Johnny Storm?”_

 

“Yes, Spiderman,” Reed’s voice fuzzes over the line, all business. “Johnny Storm has been kidnapped, and the culprit is asking for you alone to come and retrieve him.”

 

“Wh…” Peter shakes his head, leaning back in his desk chair. He takes a deep breath and rubs at his forehead. _This_ sounds like it’s going to go horribly wrong; make no mistake on his luck. “And… You’re just going to let this happen? Aren’t you going to, I dunno… Send somebody to go get him?”

 

The weary ‘who isn’t _me?’_ goes unsaid.

 

“We would,” Reed acquiesces. “However, we’ve already scoped the warehouse out. There’s only two people inside. I suggest that it is an over-eager fan, and not much else. Johnny may even be playing along as we speak.”

 

Peter grumbles out a petulant, “Well what if I don’t _wanna_ play along.” Even so, he can already feel the resignation bubble up and consume him.

 

He’s probably not going to say no.

 

There’s a soft chuckle on the other line. “Sue says that it’s one of those fanatics. The- what do you call them… Shippers?”

 

Peter groans out loud. _“Noo,_ Reed, not you _too- “_

 

“They’re calling it ‘SpideyTorch’,” Susan’s endlessly amused voice interrupts the two-way line.

 

 _“Sue!”_ Peter whisper-shouts, indignant. He’s having flashbacks of when everybody immediately assumed that he was dating MJ, Harry, or both at once. This is worse. “That’s it, I’m not- I’m not gonna sit here and take this.”

 

“So you _will_ go and get him?” Sue questions. There’s a slight hardness to her tone now.

 

Peter swallows dryly. “Yes, m’am.”

 

“Good. I look forward to seeing you bumble around in our kitchen for breakfast tomorrow morning.”

 

And then The Fantastic Four members hang up, leaving the lonely vigilante to sort out this mess by himself.

 

Peter only lets loose and explosive sigh, mumbling a sarcastic ‘great’ as he re-suits. He just got back from an evening patrol and everything. He feels gross; like a snake slipping back into its shed skin, only sweatier.

 

Gwen’s not going to _believe_ this bull schnitzel.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“All I wanted to do was eat something cheap, do my chunk of homework, and send myself off to dream-land,” Spiderman grumbles to himself as he peeks over the side of the grimy warehouse window. “But noooooo… I’ve gotta go get _this_ guy.”

 

Said guy is currently tied up in a flimsy plastic chair that looks like it was stolen from a nearby public school. In front of him is what appears to be a fairly angry average Joe in full on red-faced, spittle-flying lecture mode.

 

“How many scarves can one person wear?” Peter quips as he lands in the middle of the warehouse floor, startling the lecturing person. “I mean – are you planning on traveling to the arctic sometime soon? Because, buddy; it’s a bit steamy in New York for winter apparel right now, you know?”

 

“S-S-Spiderman!” They sputter out, swinging neck binoculars nearly colliding with their face as they jump. “I- I- I’m glad that you, you made it!”

 

Peter puts up a placating hand, casually strolling closer despite the slight prickling of his spider-senses. How bad could one sleezeball be? “Please, please – hold your applause. I’m just here for _this_ chopped liver.”

 

Johnny’s head lolls somewhat to the side, blearily blinking at Spiderman with hazy eyes.

 

Huh. What Peter first assumed to be lackluster enthusiasm might just be the effects of drugs instead. He gives the ‘kidnapper’ an appraising eye.

 

“I’ll be taking my order to go, if you don’t mind,” Spiderman says with a faux-pleasant lilt. Better to butter them up rather than batter them down. “I guess you can say that I called ahead, and –“

 

“I-I-I’m afraid that I-I can’t let you do that, S-Spiderman,” the mousy person wrings their hands nervously.

 

“And why not?” Peter hazards, slowly inching around the kidnapper and towards the silent Johnny unperceptively. So far so good. “I mean, you don’t need him anymore, right? I’m here, aren’t I?”

 

“That’s right…” They slur, giving Peter some deeply unseating dreamy looks. “You _are_ here; Spiderman is here…”

 

Peter tries not to cringe. Why are his fans always so weird?

 

He shakes the image of a certain mercenary from his mind.

 

“Okay, so…” Peter full on takes an obvious step towards Johnny.

 

“B-b-but you can’t!” They cry, whipping out some sort of leather journal and brandishing it like a weapon. Peter treats it like one, despite the lack of spider-senses warning him of danger. “I… I have proof of your, your true identity!”

 

Johnny makes a growling noise from his chair, thrashing slightly against his bindings, which give odd clicks like metal. The absolute smallest spark of fire sets off from his feet, but nothing more, and he slumps once again with a breathless heave.

 

“My hero,” Peter gets out. His sarcasm falls flat, however, in the wake of the kidnapper’s threat.

 

His ‘true identity’? Surely, that doesn’t mean…

 

“Exactly!” They crow, self-satisfied words blending horribly with their palpable nervousness. “And, once I identify who that _young man_ is in the photos… I will know Spiderman’s identity!” They prepare themselves to show their evidence. “And then… And then you’ll have to do as I say! Unless you want to have a little slip-up with the media...”

 

…Okay, Peter will admit it; he’s pretty scared right now. Johnny seems coherent enough to be listening in, as the Fantastic Four member is shifting in the bindings holding tight.

 

He barely has enough time to catalogue his possible escape routes and reactions before they’re moving on.

 

The other person opens the journal – which is actually some sort of leafy binder – to reveal… Nothing.

 

“Um…” Peter stalls, putting up a finger as if to politely inform even as the tension rolling in his body slowly diffuses. _Whew._ “Your assignment was due yesterday, Binoculars. I’m not accepting late or _missing_ copy excuses at this time.”

 

Binoculars squawks, ripping open nearly every pocket of the binder and digging through its confines with a distressed face. “What… What!?” They take a deep breath and scream, quite dramatically, _“WHERE IS MY EVIDENCE!?”_

 

Peter scrubs one ear with his finger. “Did your dog eat it?”

 

Johnny huffs out a laugh. Peter counts that one as a win.

 

 _“Arrghh!”_ Binoculars continues to meltdown, tossing their leather binder off to the side with a gruttal, _“Never mind!”_

 

“Hey, that looks expensive –“ Peter tries valiantly to save the leather binder, one hand limply coming up to trace its descent to the floor some ways away. “Aw…”

 

“I’ll… buy you one…” Johnny coughs bemusedly, smirking up at Peter from under sweaty fringe.

 

“Shut up,” Peter grouses back, crossing his arms and pivoting his body away. Johnny’s weak laughter follows him. Jerk. “You tossed me out of a window.”

 

Johnny’s laughter abruptly stops. He cranes his head to stay within Peter’s peripherals. “You’re still… on about that?”

 

Peter huffs, somewhat childishly showing Johnny his full back and pointing his nose towards the ceiling. “No, I’m not.”

 

He is. He really is not over it. Honestly; he’d always trusted Johnny completely to carry him, both in the metaphorical and the physical sense. It’s no wonder that that natural trust has been broken by Johnny’s _stupid_ stunt just to _stupidly_ prove Gwen wrong in some _stupid_ competition.

 

…So, yes – Peter is ‘still on about that.’

 

Binoculars takes that time to interrupt their little spat by cackling. It errs on the side of evil, but is a bit too pitchy to really take the villainous cake.

 

“Perfect…” They hum, like they know what they’re doing. In Peter’s experience, they probably do not. “This is _perfect!_ Don’t you see, Spiderman?”

 

“Ah… No?” Peter hedges. Because, um, what?

 

“Storm does not care for you!” Binoculars exclaims, throwing their arms out in a gesture that reminds Peter of, oh, about fifty other self-proclaimed evil people. Something inside of him grows weary. “This- this _cretin,_ deigned to _endanger_ you! All for some kind of, of _publicity stunt!”_

 

“Whoa, now,” Peter holds his hands up. He’s sweating again, though his senses are quiet. Abandoning him in his time of need, of course. “How did you know that?”

 

Johnny hisses, “Because you just told them, _genius.”_ Peter flips him off without turning around. He says something impolite that the human arachnid ignores artfully.

 

 _“I_ was _there!”_ Binoculars tells them with an angry glare, stabbing one finger to their chest like the memory personally offends them. “I was there, and I was the only one to understand what was _really_ going on.” That finger is then pointed towards the slumped Johnny. _“That man_ defenestrated you, without your trusted web shooters, without your _wings,_ all for his own gain! I _saw it!”_

 

Peter shifts awkwardly in his place, hands coming up to cross his body and grip at his thin shoulders without his mind’s express consent. “W…Well, yea, but –“ He doesn’t know where he’s going with that sentence.

 

“But nothing!” The bystander announces, cutting the stuttering Spiderman off. “He’s betrayed you once – who’s to say that he won’t betray you again?”

 

Peter stands there tapping a soothing tempo out onto his neck until he notices that the bystander and Johnny are both waiting for some kind of verbal response from him.

 

“W- wow, you guys, you two sure know how to uh…” Peter swallows dryly. “Sure know how to put the pressure on a guy –“

 

“Come with me, Spiderman!” The bystander suddenly offers.

 

“Oh, boy,” Peter gets out. Something inside of him lays down and never gets back up.

 

“I know someone – my _employer,”_ they tell him mysteriously as they lift up a hand to be taken, like this is a dramatic movie or something. “He knows just how to _take care of you._ He’s even offered you part of his _millions of riches!_ His _protection!”_ They send a sneering glance at Johnny. “Unlike _him.”_

 

Instead of getting a chance to answer – a very firm yet stilted ‘no’, most likely – Peter’s phone vibrates in his hidden suit pocket, nearly startling him into a yell.

 

“I- Excuse me for a moment,” Peter asks of his two observers as he pulls out his phone and takes a gander at the text he was just sent.

 

It’s the contact with the line of spider emoji’s and nothing else.

 

All it says is ‘;)’.

 

Peter looks at the text. Looks at the contact name. Looks at the bystander, all smug and waiting, even though their arm seems to be getting tired. Looks at the text again.

 

“Oh, my god,” Peter gets out, rubbing his face with one hand in pure embarrassment. “Well, that solves _that_ mystery.”

 

He sends back an ‘no means no. we’re having WORDS later, dp.’

 

‘;(‘.

 

“Winky sad face?” Peter asks the air incredulously. “What does a winky sad face even mean!?”

 

“Who’s sending you winky faces?” Johnny demands, seemingly gaining back enough strength to try and take a peek at Peter’s phone.

 

Peter is slightly irritated as he puts away his phone. “None of your- Do we have to do this _now?_ _Really?”_ He turns his peeved gaze and body language on the still waiting bystander. “And _you._ The answer is _no,_ and your ‘employer’ knows that. Honestly, I’m more concerned that you decided to trust the word of a _mercenary_ than anything right now. I mean… for real, dude? Where was that voice in your head that says _‘maybe_ this is a bad idea’? Off in the arctic with all five hundred of your other scarves!?”

 

The bystander works their jaw, hand rubbing circulation back into their arm as they stare heatedly at Spiderman. “Fine. _Fine._ I didn’t want to have to do this but…” They take a breath, air rising in tandem with Peter’s warring senses. “Obviously, you leave me no –“

 

“Nope,” Peter grunts as he webs both of their arms to their sides. “Nope to that entire spiel.”

 

Johnny chuckles somewhat as the bystander falls to their knees, masking the noise of something hard and hollow clamoring from their pocket to the floor with the sound of their bones and their hissing epithet of curse words.

 

“Don’t make me get the soap,” Peter warns the spitfire kidnapper, walking forward in order to lasso an entire spool of webbing around them so that they look like a fly caught in a web. “I’m not known to be very nice to mean people who say mean things.”

 

Wisely, they shut up.

 

Then, after a good amount of head-shaking at the person tied up, Peter turns to the only other person also tied up within the near vicinity.

 

Johnny Storm looks imploringly at him.

 

Had Peter’s mask been off, he would be making a very unimpressed face.

 

“Would it get me any preemptive brownie points if I go ahead and say ‘sorry’?” Johnny asks, drug-dulled eyes still somehow looking bright and fiery (as they should.)

 

Peter scoffs. “’Sorry’ for getting so easily kidnapped and making your harebrained family call me to fix it or ‘sorry’ for tossing me out the window of the Baxter Building a month ago?”

 

Johnny winces. “See – Gwen said you were over it, but _I_ said ‘no way, he’s still all _twitchy –“_

 

 _“Of course_ I’m still- wait, I get twitchy?” This is news to Peter.

 

_“You fools!”_

 

Both heroes turn (in Johnny’s case, lean) back towards the culprit of the frantic shouting.

 

The bystander had shuffled themselves, poised exactly over some small, plastic thing that Peter didn’t quite notice sitting on the floor.

 

“This is it!” They shout, eyes wide. Peter’s senses buck. _“This is it!_ What will punish the wrongdoer once and for all!” They blink at Peter. “Spiderman; you have the means to escape, and only you. I suggest that you make use of that now.”

 

“A bit too dramatic there…” Peter attempts to assuage, only it falls flat in the face of the unknown.

 

 _“Goodbye,”_ the bystander spits out, _“Johnny Storm.”_

 

Then they fall, Peter’s spider-senses screaming too late for him to catch on and understand.

 

There’s a click from underneath their body.  And then there’s an awful ripping sound from somewhere deeper within the warehouse.

 

“Uh –“ Peter attempts to get out, only an explosion interrupts him. How dangerously rude.

 

Bits and pieces of metal or wood or whatever happened to be stored within the building fly, Peter barely managing to dodge a few. The bystander, however, is less fortunate, as their attempt to sit back up leaves them open for the chunk of burning something that connects with their head. They slump over once more, unconscious.

 

 _“What_ is going on!?” A pinned Johnny yells, unable to twist all the way in his chair and get a good look. “Is it weird that I feel really hot right now? I usually don’t feel this hot. Not even naked.”

 

“Just _hang on!”_ Peter yells above the noise of the warehouse collapsing around them, deftly yanking the limp body of the bystander closer with a line of webbing while positioning himself behind Johnny’s chair to release his friend. “I’ll get you out in a- Oh, _you’ve gotta be_ _kidding me!”_

 

 _“What!?”_ Johnny shouts back. “If you can’t tie your shoes then this is one of the top ten worst times to be telling me this!”

 

 _“Your cruddy chair is bolted to the floor!”_ Peter responds with, harried. He tugs at the legs of the plastic and cheap metal monstrosity, but it doesn’t budge.

 

“Just break it – I used to sit in these in middle school for crying out loud, they’re worthless!”

 

“It’s tougher than it looks!” Peter gripes back. “Just- Whatever, I’ll untie- _No!_ _Baby Jesus in a sweet dill pickle jar!”_

 

Johnny looks immensely confused. “Was that English?”

 

“How did neither of us notice that _you’re chained!?”_ Peter wails. Something flaming shoots past his head and nicks his ear, making him hiss and panic even more as the fire behind them turns into more of a raging inferno.

 

“Don’t blame me – I woke up feeling like my brain was fried eggs!” Johnny struggles a bit. “Metal… that’s no problem for Spiderman though, right? _Right!? Peter!?”_

 

 _“I can’t rip through solid metal!”_ Peter yells right into Johnny’s ear, beyond frustrated. _“I’m not the Hulk!_ Listen – how much can you flame on?”

 

“Not a lot!” Johnny warns, his voice barely carrying in the super-heated air. Something crashes down not but ten feet from them, further making eventual escape increasingly dire.

 

“I just need you to heat your hands, or your wrists, or- or _\- something!”_ Peter begs, tugging at the chains that are also bolted to the chair. If they were only tied to Johnny this would be _loads_ easier, like noodling your toothbrush out of its packaging without using scissors. “If you can heat it up enough, I can use its softened composition to –“

 

“If my last memory before I die is of you blabbering on about science, then I hope you end up in purgatory!” Johnny shouts even as he strains to heat his hands to the appropriate degree.

 

“Come on, come on… Yes, yes!” Peter cheers his friend on even as he uses one leg to roll the collapsed bystander out of the way of flying debris. “Almost… Almost… Hold it!”

 

 _“Arrgh!”_ Johnny grits his teeth and clenches his eyes shut, obviously fighting against the symptoms of heavy duty drugging that’s continuously trying to keep him from using his powers.

 

Peter wastes no more time – as the three links surrounding Johnny’s bright white hands begin to fizzle and pop with pink and blue lights, he uses all of his enhanced strength to separate them with a disgustingly dangerous slurping noise, spilling red hot melted metal onto the floor like soup.

 

“Let’s go!” Peter urges the exhausted Johnny, who still somehow manages to shake off the broken chains and stand, only to keel over almost immediately. “I’ll carry you!”

 

“No, you need to carry them!” Johnny reminds Peter, who balances the bystander on one shoulder.

 

“I’ve got two shoulders!” Peter argues, offering one arm to Johnny, who collapses against Spiderman’s side with a pained breath. “Hoof it, flamebrain!”

 

The two hurriedly hobble their way towards the largest exit of the warehouse, keeping their sights set on the half-open door even as the world behind them disintegrates into a hot, loud disaster. The only reason that Peter isn’t swinging them out right then and there is because he can’t trust anything to be solid enough to hold their weight.

 

Right as he thinks that, a few support beams begin their descent directly in their path to the door, threatening to block off their only escape route with the huge, flaming bulk.

 

“We’re not going to make it!” Johnny shouts, but heedlessly Peter pushes forward with determination, mind working on another plan.

 

“Hang on!” Peter yells back, forgoing answering Johnny’s tired ‘for _what!?’_ as he shoots a web towards the top part of the door. It melts in the heat. _“Fish sticks!_ Just a little bit closer…”

 

 _“Peter!”_ Another worried shout from Johnny.

 

“Almost!” Peter keeps his arm up and trained on the support of the door, calculating the distance and the heat and the integrity of his webs before… _“Okay!”_

 

He shoots a thick string of webs. It connects.

 

Peter doesn’t bother wasting time warning his cargo once more to hang on, using his strength to launch their combined weights up and out, busting through the door with shards of wood and flaming debris chasing their tails like the hounds of hell.

 

Johnny yells shortly before his face connects with the concrete, skidding an equal distance as the side-laying Peter does. The bystander rolls even further away, but is mostly unharmed aside from the bump on their head.

 

The building behind them gives a great heave, like it was waiting until the very last second to give in, before collapsing into a burning heap.

 

Stunned silence. The crackling heat left of the warehouse combines with the muggy night air as the distant sounds of sirens make themselves known.

 

“Wow…” Johnny gets out from beside Peter, chin digging into the ground and muffling his words, “that was almost as hot as me.”

 

Peter can’t help it. His arm, despite the pain and exhaustion, comes up to lightly slap Johnny on the limp shoulder.

 

“Was that a love tap?” Johnny croaks out, ending his teasing question on a few breathless chuckles as he scrunches up his face in a self-satisfied grin.

 

“Shut up,” Peter tells him, coughing once.

 

The two lay on the ground and get their bearings, panting with exertion as Johnny rolls onto his back with a withering groan.

 

“Well…” Johnny begins. “Now what.”

 

“I dunno about you…” Peter responds after a few seconds, purposefully obtuse as he sits up and scratches at the slightly burnt skin under the mask. “But I vote we leave that… that _wood lice,”_ Johnny chokes on a laugh, “here for the police to find.”

 

“Seconded,” Johnny agrees, sitting up to join his friend. “I was thinking more about you and me.”

 

“Oh?” Peter voices in his loftiest tone. He manages to get onto his knees, but no higher. “What about you and me, Mr. Storm?”

 

“Aww, baby,” Johnny hums as he shuffles closer, hiding his pained winces behind a characteristic grin. How full of himself. “Don’t be like that. I’ve changed.”

 

“How so?” Peter sniffs lightly, purposefully crossing his arms low over his hips and looking away.

 

Johnny breathes hot air onto the side of Peter’s head. “I don’t just throw any old spiders out the window these days, you know.”

 

Peter’s glad for the mask, or else Johnny would see the stupid, uncontrollable smile on his face right now. “Oh, my god…”

 

It’s just his luck – when isn’t it – that Johnny takes that moment to lightly, hesitantly _, gently_ pull the ends up Peter’s mask up his throat, baring his chin, then his lips, and then his nose to the night air.

 

Peter’s hands unwittingly float upward until they grasp limply at Johnny’s shoulders, the Human Torch’s own hands never leaving the sides of his face.

 

He unconsciously begins to quote the bystander’s earlier words.

 

This is it. _This is it._

 

Johnny’s neck bends as he rests his cheek on the side of Peter’s face, slowly dragging his nose down until his lips meet just next to Peter’s pulse. They press inward, making the other person’s breath stutter –

 

– and then he blows a raspberry.

 

Peter makes a wounded noise full of mirth that dissolves into laughter, barely catching himself from falling by latching onto Johnny’s shoulders as his body arches to get away from the ticklish feeling.

 

“Oh, ow, ow, ow…” Johnny complains, prompting Peter to immediately start checking him over for injuries. “Sore shoulders; kind of tied up for a few hours there. You really took your sweet time, huh?”

 

“Hey, it’s not my fault your family thinks that ‘only two people’ means one is harmless!” Peter shoots back.

 

Johnny looks aghast. “They knew I was here and still just _left me?_ ” He scoffs, incredulous and overtly offended. “What a bunch of bozos!”

 

“That’s what I said!” Peter readily agrees. “Well – not like I would ever call Susan Storm a _bozo_ over the phone, anyway…”

 

Johnny just laughs as Peter drags him to his feet, the two adopting a similar position to when they were escaping the flaming warehouse.

 

The Fantastic Four member gives the bystander on the ground, still passed out, a considering look, though not one bereft of the proper amount of loathing. “Should we leave a note or something?”

 

“Nah,” Peter reassures him, beginning to make their way back towards somewhere that isn’t abandoned and full of old junk. “The police will see the webs on ‘em and be able to tell that they’re connected to the fire.”

 

Johnny nods. “Yea, I can see the uh… the _real story_ getting out being embarrassing.”

 

“You and me both. Watch it,” Peter warns briefly before shooting a web up to the side of a building and beginning to swing, one-armed.

 

It takes them a while to make it to the Baxter Building, and there are a few close calls where Peter nearly slips on his hold of Johnny, but they do eventually get there with minimal casualties.

 

Emphasis on the ‘minimal.’

 

“You clipped that bird on purpose,” Johnny complains, rubbing the side of his face where a suspiciously beak-shaped mark sits.

 

“I did not!” Peter defends, nudging Johnny into the window and shutting it behind them. “I just… wasn’t expecting that flock to be going around that bend this time of night…” He trails off, looking to the side. “Must’ve been the fire that set them wrong…”

 

“Oh, so you track birds; that’s… that’s…” Johnny’s somewhat sarcastic jabber is cut short by a jaw-cracking yawn. _“Fuck_ checking in – those a-holes can wait until morning. I’m going to bed.” He gives Peter, who is swaying on the spot, a look. _“We’re_ going to bed.”

 

Instead of kicking up a fuss, like a more awake Peter would, the human arachnid only begins sleepily peeling off his suit, dropping the items carelessly to the floor since there was no one to hide from here.

 

Peter blindly catches the pair of shorts and t-shirt that Johnny throws at him, mumbling a thanks as he easily pulls the oversized fabric on.

 

“Nice…” Johnny drawls for some indecipherable reason as Peter crawls into the bed right after him.

 

“Mmph,” Peter responds intelligently, scratching lightly at the healing burn wound on his neck and ear.

 

Just as he’s getting incredibly, _exhaustively_ comfortable in the bed, Johnny picks that time to start peppering his neck delicately with chaste kisses.

 

“Nnnn…” Peter complains even as he twists backwards to allow Johnny a kiss on the side of the mouth.

 

“Really?” Johnny mumbles right back, “you’re shunning _me_ – shunning _our_ _first kiss_ – just so that you can _sleep?”_ He snorts into Peter’s shoulder, getting a tired giggle for his playful efforts. “For shame.”

 

“Shh…” Peter whispers, “I’m in your bed, you Casanova. What more could you want?”

 

There’s a few soft moments of dark silence before Johnny cuddles up against Peter’s back, snuffles into his hair, and barely breathes a, “You’re right.”

 

The next morning, Reed silently slides Sue a couple of bills under the table as Peter comes wandering into the kitchen, hair looking like a 90s troll’s, swamped in Johnny’s clothes, and ready to pilfer their pantry for hot chocolate mix.

 

The Human Torch himself unhurriedly trails in after, looking smug and smirk-y even as he limps most of the way on his journey to stick his hot nose in between Peter’s shoulder and neck, getting a surprised squawk and swat for his audacity.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The joke about the 'WHERES MY EVIDENCE??' is that in [chapter 7, Harry basically hired someone (Deadpool, actually) to steal the photos of Peter and Johnny outside of the Daily Bugle,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6853342/chapters/16570567) and either kept or destroyed the photos of Peter suiting up in the alley with The Human Torch. Yea, that's right - Harry knows. Peter doesn't know that Harry knows. I'm not going anywhere with that, I just thought that it was a fun tidbit. Especially since this means that Deadpool both helped Spider-Man _and_ technically enabled the bystander, putting Spider-Man in danger. Way to go, Wade.
> 
> The whole 'Peter tracks birds' thing is just a shout-out to I Like Birds by chinashopbull. You know; the number one autistic!Spidey fic out there right now? [waves dreamily at the author]


End file.
